An O.A.P.'s view of everything.

Monthly Archives: February 2017

I think storm Ewan arrived this morning. By Radcliffe wharf it was almost sunny, if wet, but an easy ride along canal to Withins bridge, then back onto the main road – still sunny.Umpteen Canada Geese along canal, bike route side.As usual, when at furthest point from ‘home’, sunny skies blackened and a flake or two of snow fell as the bike rolled up Daisyfield viaduct bike-route, where, bikes were leaning around …By now the snowflake or two was a blizzard but ahead, undaunted, volunteers shovelled and brushed Arctic weather to clean-up the bike-route!I learned, from one or two volunteers, that brushes and shovels were up ahead, and that should I use one for a bit, I’d be one of the youngest at work in the blizzard.
Unfortunately if I don’t arrive back ‘home’ within reasonable time certain folk might dust off the poli … erm, panic. So I couldn’t help with shovelling today – but there’s always tommorow.
But, much good work done to local bike-routes by such volunteers, thanks guys and ladies.
Meanwhile, on the much funded fun front, Greece is after another bailout to the tune of £34,000,000,000,00p. ‘Bout time they did some of that really hard to do stuff, erm, work I think they call it.
For hard work, take a shovel and brush up a bike-route viaduct in a blizzard!
For free.
🙂

Rain so far today. But it’s died off a bit. Where’s me coat?
Nah, still raining. There’s plenty of water around here again.
The fun front has an interesting ‘item’ today (or is it an ‘advert?). Apparently dear old beeb has ‘hundreds of licence-fee enforcement officers’ currently chasing ‘performance’ bonuses of £15,000.00p apiece. Well, one hundred of ’em will cost: £1,500,000.00p so, to fund (say) 100 lfeo’s, they’d need to nab 10,000+ licence-fee dodgers. And there are hundreds of lfeo’s. And this is just a bonus estimate. Dunno what wages they’re on. Makes a mockery of the licence fee eh? And again ‘funding’ doesn’t seem to pan out does it?
And already some diligent pcso has said that there are fake fivers about … mmm, just been erm, moulded too …
🙂

Dry and nearly windless for a morning six-miler on the bike. Plus a few additional yards swan-watching with a bread crust or two. Nests and eggs might not be long.
The much reported nuances, and effects, of Storm Doris may have faded but fear not – Storm Ewan; 70mph winds and -2c temperatures, is on its way.Pic two features high-ish Irwell water at Warth, with a twenty-foot tree jammed over the weir! The nearby Archimedes Screw was churning nicely – unlike the hillside windfarm blades …
On the fun front squatters opposite The Palace have been erm, evicted … security threat you know … and ‘Tarzan’, remember him? Well, he’s at it again in parliament – this time trying to ‘slow’ Brexit.
Some homes, bought-out by hs2 company, are no longer en-route which has changed. £millions are involved. Folk puzzled, bewildered, shocked, by hs2 and its costs etc., might like pic three today. It’s of a coal tender (I think) for a steam locomotive. It may have been repaired at Rileys ??
Whatever. It’ll help keep a real locomotive chugging cheaply somewhere …
🙂

Rainy again but a short bike-ride done all the same. There are more tree-branches along roads, after Doris, than on the trees! Clearing-up, after the storm, will cost £400,000,000.00p I read – so someone’s been out and about with a pocket calculator … sadly they’ve given the up signal to hs2, while, due to Doris, many rail routes are delayed even today … leaves on a line perhaps. River Irwell water-levels are reasonable but there are flood warnings. Really Doris is fairly normal winter weather in the north.
But the fun front excels this morning. M.p.’s are to get another 1.4% next year, taking their ‘pay’ to £76,000.00p a year – a rise of £9,000.00p in two years. And judges get 11%!. Some soon to be on over £220,000.00p a year.
President of nfu suggests farmers start growing veggies rather than relying on Spain. (Doh, at last!) They could use poly-tunnels he says … (slight booboo around here – they’ve flogged land for building instead.) Mind you salad stuff is being grown without problems in big greenhouses in Evesham. (Our booklets on growing vegetables yourself, which isn’t rocket-science, had to be withdrawn due to eu vat and us irs rules on digital products.)
Despite all this Boeing open a new factory in Sheffield. Which means wages for folk with which to buy veggies …
Sadly, due to an enterprising scrap-metal man calling this morning, our 1950’s Qualcast handpushed lawn-mower, minus a wooden front roller, has gorn.
Well, you can’t mow spuds …
🙂

After Storm Doris (?) it was erm, sunny ? today – see today’s pic. But three days of steam loco’s have been missed! Doh. And, what’s worse, they’ve given the go ahead to start construction work for hs2 in the Spring.
🙁

Storm Doris has brought heavy rain and blustery winds so, as well as air and road traffic being affected, there’s also no out and abouting on the bike as yet. The rain has gorn off a bit in the last hour. But the bins are all over the street. (Sorted!)
In London,’squatters’ move into a £14,000,000.00p house opposite Buckingham Palace! While radio-active boars – they’ve eaten Chernobyl contaminated mushrooms – roam Czech countryside.
🙂

Rainy this morning but a wind-battered six miles on the bike. Tomorrow, they forecast, the ‘weather bomb’ (technically, I read, ‘cyclogenesis’, mmm, who’d’a’ thought eh?) will erm, explode (?) with 80mph winds and 8 inches (a foot now) of snow as Storm Doris strikes. (Yawn) But river Irwell levels are a bit higher (see today’s pic) by about a foot to 18 inches. (I prefer Imperial too)
🙂

Dry and not cold or windy this morning and so an easy early bike-ride. There is a temp. traffic-light along Ainsworth Road near Jacks. Traffic not too bad after morning’s rushes.
The fun front ran a 17 year high tax surplus in January – as expected with Capital Gains, Corporation and self-assessment taxes coming in. Public debt now stands at £1,682,800,000,000.00p and rising. The pm sat watching the lords at pla …erm, work yesterday. There is one called lord Pannick … there are umpteen, on £300 a day – in their hand.
And spaceports – places where you can get to and back from space – have been mentioned as a thing to build… well, all this is the fun front.
But, another 5000 jobs, they say, at Amazon before year’s end. While business rate rises threaten to shut all the shops – except the major food distributors …
🙂

Drizzly and humid early-on but okay for a biked six miles. Might be a road-up, with temp. lights, along Ainsworth Road near Greenbank junction. Large twigs and branches, along Bolton Road near new houses, are still all over bike-lane but are squashed-up a bit. Take care on two wheels though there.
The fun front reports that, on average, drivers spend 32 hours per year stuck in traffic. And those govern-mental are after getting spaceports built as early as 2020. Mmm … you’ve just got to watch folk from Klingon arriving at them to claim benefits. I wish I’d got an eu job years ago – the pensions are fantastic! Tax free too I read.
🙂

Drizzly all morning but two shorter bike rides when it died-off a bit. Near the Irwell, at Lower Hinds(?), new pylon work progresses.But the Archimedes Screw, at Warth, is running slower lately.A YouTube video, about Netherlands cycling, shows how a seven-hundred year old canal-turned-into-a-motorway, was turned back into a canal again to benefit pedestrians and cyclists. Most folk, there, ride bikes rather than drive cars and the bikes, generally, are the older steel styles. Bike shops are massive.
🙂